Sabrina Matera On Successfully Running Design Maters & Life As An Entrepreneur

Surabhi Verma
The Inception
Published in
9 min readFeb 9, 2020

Our audience is keen to read about the stories of entrepreneurs creating a difference in the world. Tell us about yourself and your area of work.

Absolutely, I’m so honored to be invited to share my journey! I am a creative strategist and graphic designer with an established 15-year career rooted in design leadership, business and brand consulting primarily for large corporations. My company, Design Maters is a certified WMBE Woman Minority-owned Business Enterprise as well as SBE Small Business Enterprise with the State of New Jersey. I work with world-class brands of various industries offering creative storytelling in the form of design. I primarily work with life-sciences pharmaceutical clientele. My line of work is a little unique as I tend to operate inside the organization designing alongside leaders and executives seeking to communicate change and transformation within their business unit, either locally or on an international level. I’ve had experience working on both an external/consumer and internal facing side so I’d say I’ ve play in both arenas as opposed to the popular demographic of designers. I have had experience working in startups, in-house design agencies, large advertising firms, competed against them, subcontracted for them so I can safely say I’ve seen the industry from a holistic perspective, how it works, how it's changing, how to cut through the red tape and get to the essence fast while delivering high caliber results for my clients.

Credit — @jenmarvelphoto @olgasfacesmua @roam.en.styleboutique

Your story is something many readers would surely relate to. In detail, tell us about your journey behind creating a successful business.

You know I wouldn’t say success, I always feel I am a work in progress and can always keep improving. Truly, it’s a combination of staying informed, learning is such a huge factor to help fuel my creativity, self-discipline: staying focused, learning to balance gives me the confidence and strength to make decisions and in a calm and composed manner and lastly, empathy. You have to listen, put yourself in your client’s shoes, understand all perspectives and take others into account before you can summarize and produce anything of tangible value. People want to be heard, they want to be understood and when you can translate that in a visual sense and then combine that into a business context, well then you’ve won half the battle.

Credit — @elenahecht_photographer @highsocietysalon

Throw some insight on how your brand works.

It’s quite interesting, this concept didn’t really sink in until this past year when I started an accelerated transformation and came to the realization very quickly I am my brand as well as a representation of my client’s brand. When I say that, I mean you attract what you project into the business world. It’s not so much the colors, fonts, hashtags or anything of that sort actually, that part comes later. It's more of a powerful concept. Seth Godin summarized this quite well, “Your brand is a story, a set of emotions and expectations and a stand-in for how we think and feel about what you do.” I would hope others see that I’m passionate about helping businesses elevate their brands and that I bring valuable thought-leadership to the table. You have to invest just as much into your personal brand as others would entrust you to do with theirs. I’ve always felt that prestige and reputation were how I was able to build clientele but it really was rooted in relationships. I’ve had longstanding genuine friendships with executives I’ve worked with for years before I’d assist them in design communication efforts. Building a sense of trust and reliability was the way I made my mark in the industry and I take a lot of pride in that. It’s such a rewarding feeling knowing that you help set others up for success!

As an entrepreneur, you must be multitasking many times during the day. Tell us what your everyday schedule looks like?

My days are usually insanity, I won’t lie. It’s the god honest truth, being a mom, wife, and businesswoman is incredibly hard but I do it with a smile, grace and lots of patience as I’ve seen my mother do. I’ve learned to live a highly optimized life lately. When I say that I mean that is where the self-discipline part comes into play, if you plan accordingly, you can fit everything into your day that you set your heart to do. I’ve also learned we’re also human and I’m also my worst enemy so I try to be reasonable with myself and if I’m tired, I go for that power nap and if I need the help, I ask for it. I create short breaks for myself during the day to help balance and recently with some great productivity coaches learning to harness the power of the mind more, taking deep breaths, meditation to clear and reset the brain has helped as well. I always bookend the day where I set time for myself in the morning and evening to both reflect, set goals and plan for the next.
So far its worked very well for me!

Credit — @jenmarvelphoto @olgasfacesmua

To build a successful brand and to establish it, one has to go through many challenges. What are some of the challenges you go through on a day-to-day basis?

That’s a loaded question, Hah! Overall, it’s more of an investigative approach in business and all else follows suit. Working with large identities offer a different struggle, I am harnessing an existing brand and not only am I taking into account the idea of what they’ve established for many years, but I’m also continuing this level of thought and applying it to various means of communication. In my case it could be a motivational employee program that I am branding, a sub-brand idea within HR or it could be working with a sales force training department that’s rolling out various digital and print materials that must all be reflective of their brand architecture. Everything needs to be rooted back to their brand’s voice and that needs to be executed with the utmost detail and respect to ensure I’ve not only aligned to that but I’ve also helped to elevate them in the best light possible.

Credit — @jenmarvelphoto @olgasfacesmua @roam.en.styleboutique

How do you remain stress-free? What keeps you going?

A creative mind never truly shuts down. Being creative in different capacities has been my outlet. I’ve always been a sponge so absorbing different cultures, technology, and art has always been so important to me. I feel blessed actually. I live, work and play in the design capital of the world, New York City! The city has always been my playground for all fun things to explore, learn and experience. I was fortunate to go to school for a short while in Manhattan before going to New Jersey but it helps to paint a bigger picture, it’s the best place for a designer to be and meet professionals from all walks of life that bring value to the business of art. I appreciate it in all forms, from dancing, painting, sketching, architecture, cooking, music, visiting museums, most notoriously fashion but it all stems from having an expressionistic nature. Having a background in architecture has helped me see things from a 3dimensional perspective and its always guided my “spiritual intuition” as Kandinsky coined it.

Credit — @jenmarvelphoto @olgasfacesmua @roam.en.styleboutique

At times when there is a tough competition in the market for every single niche, how do you plan to keep up with growing industry standards and demands?

I see myself as a Brand Disruptor, a risk-taker with how I approach solutions inside an enterprise, using unusual combinations of talent, rapid learning sprints and applying new technology to solve creative problems and constantly pushing the creative bar within a business context of course. Apart from marketing for big companies, I help to shape emerging people brands that have become a recent trend for my business. This has come in the form of a suite of solutions from Keynote design, social media strategy, website design and print collateral among other added deliverables. The growing industry according to Harvard Business Review is an “experience economy” we have shifted from “having” to a “being” concept, everything needs to feel like an experience and that is what I strive for in a digital and print context.

Credit — @elenahecht_photographer

How have you planned on expanding your business and taking it to the next level?

Collaboration is key to expansion and growth for the future of work. Working alongside individuals of different expertise is very important to me lately as it influences and elevates my work product. It’s critical for me otherwise I would just be designing in a bubble. I’ve collaborated with business consultants, digital architects, executives in various global roles, video producers, celebrities, it really ranges. I need to have that input and interdependency so I can expand. I’ve always had fascinations with different industries as well and that makes my job exciting because I could work with the automobile industry one day while designing an interface for a children’s learning application the next, I really never know what opportunity comes my way next, most jobs come by referral. Every week, not even..every day is an exciting adventure! Our future economy will be built on creativity and technology so embracing upcoming talent that has a natural desire to operate in these crossroads is essential.

If there is one piece of advice you were asked to give to coming-of-age entrepreneurs, what would it be?

I’d have to say it’s a combination of having a lot of patience, holding yourself accountable and self-discipline. Don’t expect anyone to help you, you have to put in the hard work and stay consistent. Set long term goals but at the same token set small realistic ones to get to those targets. I’m fortunate to be surrounded by a lot of self-made entrepreneurs in my family and within my circle of friends so I’d say it sounds cliché but you are who you surround yourself with. My inner network inspires me to be my best and push me when I sometimes need a pep talk or need to vent. Being an entrepreneur sometimes gets lonely and you feel like you are constantly going against the grain but having that support system to fall back on is so important and refreshing. No one will help you achieve those goals but yourself so learning to cope with disappointment and learning from it will be a valuable takeaway and don’t expect to win in everything. Be grateful for each lesson and humble enough to understand that there are plenty of leaders out there that you can seek mentorship from when the going gets rough. I would never say I’m an expert but I’ll always aspire to be a better version of myself and hope to set an example not only for a younger generation in this new economy but for my children as well.

Where all can we find your work?

Every now and then when I am not working on something that is confidential, I take on a few projects that are completely different from a corporate setting. These are usually disruptive, uber-creative and I’m generally pushing the creative bar in these applications. I have entered some of that material into creative competitions like the NJ AdClub and Graphic Design USA among others just to share my versatility and see what other talented designers are doing to shake things up in the industry. Unfortunately, people don’t get to see my work as much due to disclosure agreements but I’ve been trying to share more of my services via case studies, so these valuable takeaways help to facilitate future ideas and conversation.

Social Handles & Website:

https://www.designmaters.com/

https://www.instagram.com/designmaters/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sabrina-matera-4a37398/

https://twitter.com/sabrinamaters

--

--

Surabhi Verma
The Inception

Author: And She Quit Her Job, Founding Editor ‘The Inception’ on Medium, Entertainment Journalist (The Times Group), Former Copy Editor (Hindustan Times).